Stacey Menchel Kussell
By Stacey Menchel Kussell
-
Culture ‘Minus 16’ Is Plus for Ailey
‘Don’t make it look pretty,” Danielle Agami said as she directed the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater during a recent rehearsal. “It’s not about the construction of beauty, it’s about the sensation. Every gesture, posture, and breath is beautiful. Just let your body be.” Agami, a former member of Batsheva Dance Company, spent November at…
-
The Schmooze Gallim Dance Makes Waves in Manhattan
Photo by Franziska Strauss Every morning on her way to dance rehearsal with the Batsheva Dance Ensemble, Andrea Miller would walk along the beach and breath in the cool, saline air. Hatayelet, Tel Aviv’s beach promenade, gave her a perfect view of the surfers. “Surfers understand the world in this perfect way,” said Miller. “They…
-
The Schmooze When Israeli Dance Goes Abroad
“Jewish people were historically a people of the book, reading Torah and studying,” said Noa Wertheim at the recent panel discussion, “The Diaspora of Israeli Dance.” “Now reconnecting with their ancient Mediterranean, working and cultivating the land, they have rediscovered their bodies and it is like an explosion.” The idea that the physicality of Israeli…
-
Culture Bringing Modern Dance Down to Earth
Noa Wertheim stands onstage with the Vertigo Dance Company, adjusting a dancer’s leg and redirecting a turn. If she disagrees with a step, her head shakes a cascade of wispy, brown hair into her eyes. Wertheim is an architect. She constructs an edifice of movement, pattern and line. Working toward perfection in every rehearsal, she…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
- 2
News Jews paused Indiana’s abortion ban — by turning a religious freedom law against the evangelical right
- 3
Exclusive Mahmoud Khalil wants to reassure you
- 4
Culture 70 years ago, this Jewish choreographer predicted our epidemic of loneliness and isolation
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward National support group for interfaith Jewish families guts staff amid funding crisis
-
Fast Forward Jewish groups condemn Trump’s threat that a ‘whole civilization will die’ in Iran
-
Opinion Trump is backed into a corner on Iran. Get ready for him to start blaming Jews
-
Culture Ben Lerner’s tale of three hotels is a lyrical novel of loss and human potential
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
